Hacker News Reader

k_shehadehon The opportunity cost of a broad skillset

It really depends on what you mean by really good. I agree that you can't be really good at many things - but only relative to yourself. Meaning that if I (personally) practice Skill A for a week versus practicing Skills A,B and C in the same week I would almost certainly be better at Skill A.

But if you work on Skills A,B and C for a week and another dude works on Skill A for a week there's no guarantee that you're going to be worse than him. Depends on smarts, I guess.

I guess it's academic but inexplicably interesting to me.

k_shehadehon Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

Yeah. Except Google's DLF allows you to export just about anything and everything you can create in Google products. It's true that Google's search is it's bread and butter but in the battle for good will, Facebook keeps shooting itself in the foot.

k_shehadehon Why Google's hiring process is broken

I couldn't agree more with this one. I have trouble talking to people about this because I failed their interview so I come across as bitter (which I am). But this problem is not just Google's problem. It's systemic. Someone a long time ago decided to turn interviewing into a formula - a bad one - and it stuck. Drives me crazy.

k_shehadehon Show HN: My embeddable C/C++ webserver

Encouraging to see more development in this space. Thanks. I'm curious, though. How do you think this compares with the mongoose (http://code.google.com/p/mongoose/) project. Other than the fact that it's C++-based what would you say are the relative advantages/disadvantages?

k_shehadehon Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

As a father, I completely agree. As a c++ developer I'm counting down to the russian support calls.

k_shehadehon How to be 100% sure your startup idea is good

I agree. Although this may not be the 100% certainty mentioned, it's another good data point. When boostrapping, it often feels like I'm working in an opinion vacuum (I don't count friends cause they tend to be annoyingly kind about these things). I like this idea.

k_shehadehon Apple: Make a desktop, your iPad app is toast

Right. For me, it's not that they're instituting restrictive policies (which I can sort of understand in some cases). The problem is that it seems to be a moving target. If I was an iPhone developer I would feel like I was being toyed with.

k_shehadehon I made a native Python module for MS Word docx

Just wanted to add my thanks to the list. This was one of the bigger holes in document processing and now it's been filled for the most part.